D esiree Gill didn’t recall how she’d gotten there, seated in a dark corner, across a small round table from one of the most famous men in the world. She had vague memories of sitting in the back of a limo and talking for hours and hours. Of lips brushing sensually across her wrist, sending an arc of desire through her. A moment later, the slightest pinprick of pain sent her soaring with fiery pleasure. Her responses had been so intense she’d finally blacked out from sheer bliss.

She knew exactly where they were now: under the green-and-white–striped outdoor awning of her favorite café on the edge of the French Quarter. A sign on the shop proclaimed that it closed only for Christmas and some hurricanes. It had closed briefly for one a few years back but had quickly reopened. The Quarter had refused to bend to the will of Katrina, even if the rest of the city was still a little ragged around the edges a full decade later.

“You were here then,” he said.

It was not a question. And something in his voice took her back to struggling through waist-high water on a street full of the stench of harsh chemicals and garbage, where an abandoned dog barked inside a ruined building and something darker than the night followed close behind her. But she didn’t want those memories right now. All she wanted was to be in this moment forever.

“All right,” he said. “We’ll let it go.”

The aromas of warm grease and sugar filled the air; powdered sugar dusted the tabletop, spilled off a tall pile of beignets on the paper plates between them. A few fat, sleepy pigeons wandered across the floor, trolling for crumbs. Rain poured down in an almost solid curtain beyond the shelter of the canopy. Despite the late hour, there was still plenty of traffic moving slowly, almost swimming through the water in the street. It was a September night in New Orleans, and she had no idea how she’d ended up there after the concert, seated across from the singer she’d had a crush on since she was fourteen. A big fan of the dinosaur stadium rock band Coyote, she cherished the CDs her mom had collected as a teenager as much as she did her downloads of the band’s recent work. One of the things she liked best about Coyote was that they were always relevant. They were survivors.

Also, Jon Coyote was the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen, and the most confident. She loved the way he could walk out onto a stage in a sold-out stadium, announce to the screaming audience, “For the next two hours, you belong to me,” and completely make good on that boast. In another age, he would have given Alexander the Great a run for his money as a charismatic world conqueror. In this day and age, he took all that god-king charisma on the road. There was something heroic about him.

Jon Coyote looked into her eyes and said, “Welcome to my world.”

“This isn’t your world,” she said. “You’re from New Jersey.”

“I’ve got family here.” He gestured toward a shadowed far corner. “There’s a bunch of my cousins sitting right over there.”

She looked and saw several pairs of eyes staring at her out of the darkness. Those eyes were glowing, red, gold, and green.

“Don’t pay any attention,” Coyote said. “They’re just showing off.”

Desi didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what to do. All she could figure was that she was dreaming. Dreaming of being with Jonathan Coyote was the best fantasy she could imagine, so she relaxed and went along with the whole thing.

“What are they?” she asked. “Werewolves?”

“Nah.” He took a sip of chicory-laced coffee. “We’re vampires.”

“Oh.” She looked at the bite mark on her wrist. “That explains it.”

So, she was dreaming that Jon Coyote was a vampire. Seeing that this was New Orleans, that almost made sense. Except that it seemed more like the sort of thing a tourist would dream about happening in her dark and mysterious city, rather than a native like her. She might be embarrassed about what her subconscious was pulling up if she was awake.

He took her hand and stroked a finger, slowly, suggestively, across her bruised wrist. The touch sent hot shivers through her. “I’ll give you a diamond bracelet to cover this, if you’d like.”

She had no use for diamonds, even in a dream. She shook her head.

“What would you like?” His voice was silken, with a dark edge that hinted at danger and ecstasy.

She held up her other hand, the wrist turned toward him. “More of the same, please.”

He smiled his famous knowing grin; his sapphire eyes took on a blue-neon glow. “Oh, honey. I’m gonna give you better than that.”

He carried her into a bedroom more luxurious than anyplace she’d ever dreamed of. The city glittered below the wide windows, brighter than the diamonds he’d promised her. He set her down on a deep carpet of indigo blue patterned with stars. A domed ceiling arched overhead, painted with the night sky. The huge bed was framed with twisting, gilded pillars and hung with blue velvet. She wondered if she could tone down all this lavishness but didn’t have the faintest idea how to manipulate a dream.

“Just relax and enjoy the ride,” Jon advised. His hands slipped under the hem of her shirt and pulled it over her head. “Actually, I have no intention of letting you relax.”

“I’m happy to hear it,” she said, and did the same with his shirt. His chest was sculpted and nicely fuzzy. She pressed her cheek against it and breathed in his scent, losing herself in the slow, slow, steady thrum of his heartbeat. It seemed too slow. She glanced up at him worriedly. “You don’t have any condition I need to worry about, do you?”

He laughed and ran his fingers through her short, curly hair. “I may be older than I look, but I’m healthy enough for what we have in mind.” He picked her up again and carried her to the bed. “As for my condition…” He sat down with her on his lap and nuzzled and licked her cleavage. “You’ll find the symptoms very pleasurable.”

Desi barely paid attention to his words. His touch burned her, and she liked it. She arched her back to offer easier access to her breast. “More, please.”

“Gladly.”

His mouth came down on her hot skin once again. This time, his lips covered an already hard nipple, and his tongue swirled wickedly around the peak while he gently suckled. She felt the nip of sharp teeth when he moved on to her other nipple. Pleasure burst through her.

Jon’s sexy laugh sent deep shivers through her, but the sound also brought her back from the edge of pleasure. She grabbed his head and brought it up for a kiss. The feel and taste of him were incredibly, deliciously male, and he very much liked being in control. His tongue delved into her mouth. His hands slid over her skin. Each touch sent all her nerve endings into overload.

She very nearly melted into the bed from all the pleasure he was giving her. Then it occurred to her that she wasn’t holding up her end of this mutual pleasure fest. This was her dream, and there was an unending number of things she wanted to do with Jon Coyote, so there was no time like this unreal present to check a few erotic things off her list.

It took her a while to get his attention. In fact, he seemed to like it when she resorted to burying her nails in his shoulders. She soon got the hang of scratching and biting, and for a while they engaged in the sort of rough play she had never imagined could be fun.

“Up for a bit of bondage?” he asked when he had her pinned beneath him, her hands held over her head. His bright eyes twinkled with mischief. “I could pull down the curtain cords and—”

“I don’t think so,” she blurted out. She giggled. “Maybe next time.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

“You’re holding me right now.”

“So I am.”

He easily held her wrists immobile with one hand and caressed her with the other. His fingers traced and teased from the side of her throat all the way to the curve of her hip. Then they glided slowly across her thigh and moved to the damp heat between her legs.

She moaned when a fingertip pressed against her swollen clitoris. She grew feverish and frantic as he stroked and caressed her inside and out. The pleasure coiled and grew until a white-hot bolt of release shot through all her senses.

His mouth covered hers as she came, and their souls met in that moment. His kiss was a completion, yet it wasn’t enough. She arched against the hard length of his body, needing more, needing all of him.

He came inside her in one swift thrust. He filled her; she surrounded him. For one long, perfect, silent moment, they were one. Their gazes met, sharing fire.

Then Jonathan Coyote laughed, threw back his head, and howled like a mad, happy version of his namesake, and his hips began to thrust while she rose to meet him. For the longest time after that, she belonged to him.

D esi woke up to find her body sticky with sweat and the residue of sex. Great sex. Only she didn’t remember whom she’d had sex with—and that was just wrong. She was in her own bed. That bed was in a tiny apartment in a rickety old courtyard building in the Quarter. The place had a squeaky, termite-eaten staircase that she remembered climbing alone. She’d come in late, and she remembered that there’d been rain.

And there’d been great sex. But she couldn’t remember where or with whom.

Well, she thought it was with Jon Coyote, but that was just wishful thinking.

And music. Such beautiful, rousing, hot music. The night had been filled with music. And rain. Sweet, warm beignets with white sugar that melted on the tongue. And there’d been kisses, hot and strong as the black coffee that had gone down so smooth and rich. And hands on her, all over her, big, strong hands with a gentle, knowing touch. Hard thighs and wicked hips that had ground against her. And a wide, strong back she’d scratched and bit and held onto while each thrust took her higher and higher, over the edge and up again to yet another erotic peak.

Damn!

Desi sat up and looked at the alarm clock on the beat-up old table next to the narrow bed. She saw the time and blinked.

And remembered where she’d been last night. In the second row at the Coyote concert. She’d laughed and danced and sang along with all the songs—the old standards and the new ones—and Jon Coyote had smiled his dazzling smile at her and reached down and touched her hand for a brief, electric moment—

And the world had gone white-hot bright, and he’d called to her, and her soul had answered, and—

And he’d moved on to the next fan reaching up toward the stage, and the next song. It had been a wonderful show. The best Coyote concert she’d ever attended, and she’d been to every performance in New Orleans since she was fifteen.

And then she’d come home—and had a hell of a wet dream.

She blushed, a little embarrassed at her erotic fantasies. Then she smiled and laughed, because if she was going to have sex in a dream with anyone, Jonathan Coyote would always be her first choice.

Her body felt as if the lovemaking had been real, which meant it had been way too long since she’d had real sex. She shrugged off the stiff muscles as evidence that she’d stood for hours on a hard concrete floor holding her own to get a good view in the huge, shoving, pushing, happy crowd. Her ears still rang from the cranked-up amplifiers and the shouting audience. Her body quivered with reaction from the superhot dream.

“Sensory overload,” she told herself.

She sang in the shower while she covered herself with thick jasmine-scented lather. She didn’t notice what the song was until a cold shiver ran through her: “Tempting Fate.” It was her favorite song in the whole world, but sometimes hearing it gave her the oddest feelings. Something niggled and nagged at the back of her mind like the echoing of a fist banging on a faraway door.

She closed her eyes and hummed “Tempting Fate” as the water poured down her body and she tried to capture something lost.

 

Her sense of smell had overloaded and shut down after the first couple of days, which was a good thing—with the humid heat and all the water in the streets, the stench wasn’t likely to go away soon. When the wind shifted, it blew in ash and smoke from the houses still burning in the Garden District and other parts of the city. There were plenty of dead bodies of humans and animals in the houses, and even some floaters in the water. It was the stuff of nightmares. The Ninth Ward was not a safe place to be, but she had promises to keep. So she’d waded into the waist-deep rivers that used to be streets once a day since she’d gotten back from Houston to see what she could find.

The first day, she’d almost gotten caught by some patrolling National Guards. If they’d seen her, they’d have evacuated her for her own good, and she’d have ended up camping out with the rest of her family back at the Astrodome—a place she’d left with her family’s permission after their first night there. Okay, not quite permission, but grudging agreement that Desi was the best person for the job during the meeting of friends and neighbors that managed to find each other. She’d left without anybody actually saying she should go. Getting back to and into the city hadn’t been all that hard, except for carrying the heavy backpack of supplies. Staying in New Orleans was proving harder.

The Quarter was safe enough. The people who hadn’t wanted to leave gathered there and took care of one another. The Quarter was home anyway, the base she came back to after each rescue foray. But outside the Quarter—well, it hadn’t been all that safe even before the storm hit, and the cops completely stopped trying. Gangs still roamed, and the echoes of gunshots filled the air much more than usual. She’d never been afraid of the city’s dangers, but then, she’d never been alone before. At least, she was always so tired after she made her way home that no distant noise could wake her.

She wished she’d brought one of her brother’s Catahoula Leopard dogs with her, but those brutes weren’t city dogs. They were safer surviving on their own in the swamps until her brother could get back to them. The animals she rescued were more than enough company, even if they didn’t make her feel any safer.

She’d learned that it was best to go out at night, except for the dark and scary part. She had told herself that tonight would be the last night she’d go looking. After all, she had six cats and four dogs under protective custody in the back bedroom. The food she’d brought with her was being supplemented with scraps from the bars and restaurants, because everybody was sharing what they had, and without power everything was going to rot soon, anyway. She had enough rescued critters to look after. She kept to the shadows and tried not to splash as she moved along the walls. She envied the rats that swam easily past her; rats never had any trouble getting around. She promised herself that she’d find Mrs. Marceau’s poodle tonight, and that would be that. Of course, that was what she’d told herself last night.

She jumped at every sound. She hadn’t been this nervous before, but something about the night just felt wrong. She told herself she was imagining that shadows took on odd shapes, that she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. She was creeped out and ready to turn back.

I have promises to keep, she thought, and kept going even as every step became harder. What was the use of having more than ordinary senses if she wasn’t going to trust them? She sighed. Promises to keep.

The only comfort she drew out of the night was something she didn’t notice at first but which grew slowly inside her. It was a sound that wasn’t a sound, a thought that was in her head but wasn’t her own. Not a thought but music. It was lovely, and somebody was humming it inside her head.

Weird.

She grew so puzzled that she stood perfectly still for a long time and forgot everything else around her. The water and the stench and the whole world disappeared.

Until a hand landed on her shoulder, and behind her a man said, “What are you doing out here, tempting fate?”

D esi came out of the daydream when the water heater ran out and a cold spray suddenly pummeled her. She quickly stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around herself.

As she rubbed the chill out of her skin, she glanced at the bathroom mirror. “Girl, what is the matter with you today?”

Despite what she did for a living, she was not prone to visions and fancies. She read cards and palms and scryed the future in a quartz crystal ball, and she was good at it. But she used her abilities strictly for paying customers. Whenever she tried to tell her own fortune, she was plagued with terrible headaches. She guessed this meant there were things she wasn’t meant to know, and she’d left the personal psychic stuff alone when she wasn’t on the clock since she was a teenager.

Desi dressed and took herself off to her job at the psychic tea room on Jackson Square. Before reaching it, an impulse made her walk to the edge of the Quarter and look across to where all the shiny, new high-rise luxury hotels loomed above the city. The buildings blocked the sight of the river and looked down over the French Quarter. The tourists got great views from both sides, but Desi resented the intrusiveness, even as she accepted that they needed tourism to survive. New Orleans wasn’t the great port city it used to be, but it was still a great place to party. This morning, one of the high glass towers seemed more familiar than it used to. She could almost imagine the view of the river from the top of the hotel. Odd, since she’d never been inside the building. And odd was definitely the word for how she felt this morning. She shook it off and turned her back on the outside world. “Welcome to my world,” she murmured as she walked deeper into the Quarter.

When she entered the tearoom Desi asked, “Guess where I was last night?”

“At the Coyote concert,” her friend Eliza and her boss, Helene Dupre, answered.

“You’ve only been talking about it for weeks,” Eliza added. She looked Desi over from head to toe. “Did you get laid after the show?”

Desi went hot all over. She gave a shaky laugh. “No,” she answered, surprising herself at the lack of conviction in the word.

“I don’t know,” Eliza drawled. “You look like a cat that got all the cream she wanted. She’s got that my-man-satisfied-me glow pouring off her aura, doesn’t she, Helene?”

The shop owner glanced up from working on her laptop to give Desi a stern once-over. “That’s what it looks like to me,” she concurred. “Who was he, girl?”

Why were there no customers in the shop to take the women’s attention off her? “That’s a watching-Jonathan-Coyote-swivel-his-hips-would-make-any-woman-happy glow, Eliza,” she answered.

Her friend laughed, and Desi went to pour herself a cup of tea.

Eliza beckoned her over when Desi came back around the counter, cradling the steaming cup. Eliza was shuffling tarot cards as Desi sat opposite her at one of the shop’s three tables. Eliza put the deck down on the center of the shiny black tabletop. “Cut.”

Desi shook her head. “I don’t want a reading.”

“I need the practice.”

Eliza was better at dream interpretation than she was with the cards. As Desi sipped her tea, she looked at Eliza, who was still watching her expectantly. “All right, I’ll give you some practice. I had this dream last night…”

Eliza leaned forward eagerly. “Talk to me, girl.”

Desi stared at the shining surface of the table, as though she could conjure images in it. When she spoke, the memories that poured out hit her with all the sensory embellishments of sound and scent, texture and sexual excitement that made it seem like it actually happened. She could feel a hot kiss from sugar-coated lips on her mouth and skilled hands stroking…

Only having to answer Eliza’s occasional question kept her from falling completely back into the odd reality of the dream. Which hadn’t been real, she reminded herself.

She glanced up after she finished and found Helene looking at her strangely. “Maybe I better get to work.” She glanced toward the shop door in the hope that a customer was going to wander in from Jackson Square.

“Our first appointments aren’t until nine,” Helene said. She continued her intense study of Desi.

Eliza fanned a hand in front of her face. “And I’m going to need that ten minutes to cool down from those descriptions of last night, Des.”

“It was a dream,” Desi reminded Eliza. “You’re supposed to interpret it, not get excited about it. Not that I can’t figure it out for myself. I haven’t slept with anyone for a while, so all that pent-up sexual energy took itself out on a dream version of Jon Coyote. What’s the matter, Helene?” she asked nervously as the woman continued to stare.

Helene sighed and finally said, “You watch out for that Coyote boy, cher. I know his family, and they’re trouble for pretty little girls like you.”

A chill went up Desi’s spine at the warning. “But it was only a dream,”

“Let’s hope so,” Helene said.

Before Desi could ask one of the strongest psychics in New Orleans what she meant, a first group of tourists came in. Desi took her customer to one of the rooms to read cards for the woman. Then the day turned very busy, and she put the concert and the dream out of her mind.

Mostly.

She had the feeling she was going to be haunted by Jon Coyote for a long time to come. She also had the feeling that this was nothing new, just more intense.

Weird.

“D amn, but last night was fun!”

Jon’s vision went red, and he whirled furiously around in his seat to snarl at the other Prime. “What the hell do you mean?”

Since Primes didn’t back down, Rico sat forward in his seat, his hands held up to show claws as he snarled back. “What the hell’s the matter with you?”

Jon noticed the glint of the thick gold wedding band on Rico’s left hand, and it reminded him that the other Prime was a bonded male. There was no threat there. He took a deep, calming breath. Why was he feeling threatened about possession of a female, anyway? He shook his head, but none of the confusion cleared out.

“What did you mean about last night?” he asked.

Rico looked at him as if he was crazy, but he was instantly calm as well. “I was talking about the fight at the warehouse. What set you off?” Then he threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, you thought I was talking about the pretty little girl you brought with you.”

“I didn’t exactly bring her with me.”

“You left with her.” Rico sat back in his seat, and the private jet began to taxi down the runway.

Jon closed his eyes as an unfamiliar sensation as sharp as physical pain rushed through him. Yeah, he’d left with her, and he’d left her. Not for the first time. It had been a stupid impulse to renew the acquaintance in the first place. But the moment he’d touched her hand, he’d known it was her, and…

“I was just going to catch up,” he muttered. “See how she was doing.”

He’d found out far more than he needed or wanted. She’d certainly grown up into a lush and lovely armful, though there’d already been the promise of beauty around her a decade ago, despite the dirt and the sweat and the heat. “My dung-hill flower,” he’d called her back then, and she’d made a horrible face. He didn’t blame her. He could write great hooks, but he was no poet. And she was still too young, even if a decade had passed. The differences in their ages hadn’t meant a thing to him last night, though.

“You’re staring into the distance with a glazed look in your eyes.” Rico interrupted his reverie. He glanced at his watch. “You’ve been somewhere besides here for the last five minutes.”

Jon didn’t remember the plane leaving the ground, but he saw that they were rushing away from New Orleans when he looked out the window. An ache grew in him with every swift mile. They were heading toward Memphis, where there was a show to do, and another job afterward. Once he was busy, this melancholy would pass. The energy from the audience and a little bloodshed should cheer him right up.

Bloodshed. Damn. She shouldn’t have seen what he’d done last night. She was young and sensitive and mort—

“Earth to Coyote,” Rico said.

Jon glanced at the watching guitarist. “I was remembering last night.”

Rico gave a toothy grin. “The raid on the warehouse? Or the girl you left behind?”

“Will you stop bringing up Desiree Gill? I don’t want to talk about her.”

Rico arched an eyebrow. “You remember her name the next day? That alone says a lot about last night.”

“We met before,” Jon said. “You remember when we were down for Katrina?”

Rico scratched his arms. “I’m not likely to forget. If you hadn’t come up with the cornstarch solution—”

“It wasn’t me,” Jon said. “It was—”

 

The last thing he had expected was the skin rash from the mixture of chemicals in the flood water. How ironic that it wasn’t the sunlight that made him want to run for cover. He scratched irritably at his left wrist as he set out on evening patrol.

The people left in this city needed looking after, and he and the rest of Coyote were among the unofficial volunteers giving the place a hand. New Orleans was a dangerous place under the best of circumstances, and these were the worst. The predators were out, which gave people like him a chance to prey on the predators. He smiled as he moved through the sludgy water and wondered if the moonlight caught the gleam of his extended fangs.

Amusement at his own vanity disappeared as he detected not only movement but also a ripple of evil energy from the shadows up ahead. He soon focused on a mortal male who followed a young woman farther up the flooded street. The mortal’s intentions were ugly; his body burned with deviant anticipation. The girl was unaware of being stalked, and Jon intended to keep it that way. He moved up silently behind the stalker.

He didn’t make a habit of killing. He believed in the rule of law. Besides, the pleasure of bloodhunting could be addictive. There was no reason for a vampire to risk his soul in an age when other sources of nourishment were so plentiful. Tonight, however, Jon had no qualms about what he did. There was no mortal law in this broken city, and he was sworn to protect the helpless. He looked into the man’s mind, found the crimes the mortal held as precious memories, and killed the bastard before the man even knew he was there. He left the corpse—one more storm victim—floating in the street. Then he moved on to catch up with the girl.

A song was taking shape in his head, and he concentrated on the music as the girl came to a halt in the shadows in front of him. She tilted her head as if carefully listening, though he knew he’d made no sound. Finally, she began to move again. When she was sufficiently far away from the body that she wouldn’t see it if she turned around, he caught up with her.

Jon put a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “What are you doing out here, tempting fate?”

She gasped and whirled around to face him. She was a little thing, a teenager. She felt not an instant of fear. She squinted at him in the darkness, studying his face. “Do I know you?” She had a dark, rich voice for someone so young. She made him think of coffee laced with cream.

He had a momentary sensation that they’d known each other all their lives, followed by wondering if she was about to ask for an autograph. “No,” he said. “Don’t you know it isn’t safe out here?”

“Of course, I know that.” She laughed.

The rich sound sent a shiver through him. Young as she was, he was very aware that she was a woman.

“But there’s a poodle that needs rescuing,” she went on. “And nobody else to do it since FEMA wouldn’t let us take pets with us when we left.”

“You’re risking your life for a poodle?”

“Someone has to,” she said over her shoulder, as she turned around and started on her way once more.

This girl was as much a protector of the innocent as he was, and he was instantly drawn to her bravery and determination. He decided to take care of her while she took care of her chosen innocents.

“Hey, wait for me!” he called after her.

 

Which was how he had met Desiree Gill. They’d found the stupid dog, which had bitten him when he picked it up. He’d still carried the animal all the way back to the French Quarter for her, since Desi already carried a cat they’d rescued along the way. Jon shook his head and smiled fondly. That little girl had him wrapped around her finger from the first moment.

 

“You know, I could be a serial killer or worse,” he warned her when she invited him up to her apartment at dawn.

“You still need a place to sleep.” She went up the courtyard stairs, and he followed. When they reached the top, she said, “I know you’re safe to be with. I’m psychic.” She gave him a look that told him she didn’t expect any argument or sarcasm.

He grinned. “Thanks for letting me crash.”

Inside, they were greeted by a herd of cats and dogs. They put the recently rescued animals down among the others. A small fight broke out between the newcomers and the current residents, some fur flew, but everything settled down before human or vampire intervention was necessary.

Once Desi saw that all was well with the critters, she looked him over critically, then pointed toward a doorway. “There’s a pile of towels on the kitchen table. Get yourself stripped off and rubbed down. You can’t afford to stay wet in this kind of situation.”

He went into the kitchen, and she disappeared into another room. She joined him in a few minutes, wearing dry shorts and a T-shirt. He’d stripped down to his underwear, but she didn’t take any notice of his seminakedness. When she looked him over carefully, it was the patches of rash covering his skin that she concentrated on.

She went to a cabinet and brought out a yellow box of cornstarch. “This’ll help,” she said, handing it to him. He took the box while he looked at her curiously. “Last year at camp, I took a course in urban disaster survival.” She gave that wonderful laugh of hers. “It sounded interesting in the brochure—who knew it would come in handy?”

 

“Hey, Jon, quit daydreaming.” Rico got out of his seat and waved for Jon to join him in the lounge at the back of the plane. “We’ve got a group meeting.”

“Right,” Jon agreed. Besides the show in Memphis, they had a rescue op to plan. He had no time to think about Desiree Gill right now, not for a long time to come.

“Y ou okay?” Eliza asked.

Desi sank to her knees on the cool tile floor of the bathroom in the back of the shop. She rested her forehead against the white porcelain sink basin and groaned. She’d just thrown up. Again. She was definitely not okay. She barely managed to shake her head, then threw up again.

“Oh, God,” she groaned. “Maybe I ought to go to a doctor.”

“So I’ve said for the last two weeks,” Eliza asked.

This awful nausea had been going on for nearly a month now. She was beginning to think it wasn’t a nasty flu bug, and suddenly the idea of going to a doctor sounded very smart. Maybe because she was scared it was something other than the flu—

“Here, take this.”

Desi turned her head just enough to see that Eliza was holding out a box toward her.

“Wha’sat?” she managed to mumble.

“Madame Helene brought it in this morning. She wants you to take it.”

Desi managed to turn around. After a few moments, the dizziness that came with the daily nausea cleared up enough for her to read the label.

“Oh!” She looked up at Eliza with horror. Her friend looked both concerned and embarrassed. “I’m not—”

“I’ll wait out here.” Eliza stepped back and closed the bathroom door.

Desi was vaguely outraged at Helene interfering in her life like this. The suggestion was appalling, ridiculous. She didn’t want to think about it. But her boss had been patient and very kind about her frequently being too sick to work recently, so Desi supposed she at least owed Helene this much. She opened the box, unwrapped the packaging, and followed the instructions.

A few minutes later, Desi opened the bathroom door to find Eliza and Helene waiting in the narrow hallway outside for her. Eliza looked worried. Madame Helene had her arms crossed and a stern look on her face. Desi took a big gulp of air and silently passed the plastic stick to Helene.

“It’s pink,” Helene said, barely looking at the test results. She didn’t sound a bit surprised.

Eliza looked at the pink indicator line, then at Desi. “You’re pregnant?”

“No,” Desi answered. “It’s a mistake. It’s not possible.” Another wave of nausea hit her, cutting off further protest. After she heaved into the toilet bowl again, Eliza helped her to one of the tables in the tea room, and Helene thrust a steaming cup of herbal tea into her hands. The warmth of the cup felt wonderful, since Desi was cold with dread.

“It’s chamomile,” Helene said. “Good for what ails you.”

Desi looked up wretchedly. “I can’t be pregnant,” she told the grim woman before her. The last thing she wanted for Christmas was to find out she was pregnant—which she couldn’t be. Immaculate conceptions didn’t happen in New Orleans, of all places! “Really, I haven’t had sex with anyone for—a long time.”

“When was your last period?”

Desi had to think about that, as she’d never been regular. “Four months, maybe three.”

“Well, then. That explains why you’re having morning sickness.”

“I’m not! The closest thing I’ve had to sex in ages was that erotic dream after the Coyote concert.” It was funny how she couldn’t get that dream out of her mind. Her skin and blood and bones couldn’t seem to forget the dream, either. “I have not had sex with a man,” she insisted.

Helene stepped back, still looking stern, but Desi knew the anger was for her, not at her. “No, you haven’t had sex with a man. You’ve had sex with—” Helene thought better of what she’d been going to say and said instead, “A coyote.”

“That was a dream!”

“That’s what he wanted you to think.” Helene shook her head. “There’s some folk it’s better our kind stayed away from, but there’s also some things their kind have to take responsibility for. There’s no way his aunt’s going to let him get away with knocking up a mortal girl in her territory.”

Our kind? Mortal girl? Dread ran like ice through Desi’s blood. She put down the tea and stood, which made her dizzy again. “What are you talking about?” she demanded.

“You’ll find out, girl,” Helene answered. “Now, sit down and drink that tea. I have to make a phone call.”

“W hat’s the matter with you?” Rico asked Jon, who was slumped in a chair across the dressing room.

The other three members of the band hadn’t arrived yet. Rico and Jon had showed up at the club they owned early to work on some songs. They used the club as a rehearsal space, for charity shows, and for trying out new material on live audiences.

So far, Rico had played a bit, but Jon hadn’t even taken his acoustic guitar out of its case. He’d been staring at the floor while Rico became increasingly concerned.

Jon Coyote was usually the happiest man in the world. He was at his most up at times like this, just before the annual holiday show for BBD, the charity the band had founded to help get runaways off the streets. Or, like the night before, when they’d pulled a successful raid on a sweatshop that was using kids as slave labor. Those kids were safe now, with their memories psychically altered to minimize the trauma. And the ones who’d kept the children in such horrific circumstances had made excellent snack food for a few hours, before being turned over to some helpful authorities hypnotized into not remembering Coyote’s involvement.

Jon loved the chase, the rescue, the capture, the helping the needy. He loved being a rock star as much as he loved being a vampire Prime. He was always confident, always cheerful. He didn’t mope. He didn’t sulk. He exuded charm and superstar charisma.

But right now, he looked as lively as an overcooked noodle.

“So, what’s up?” Rico asked.

Jon finally looked at him. “Holiday blues,” he answered. “Christmas sucks.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Being alone on Christmas sucks,” Jon added.

Ricardo Shagal considered this the Victorians’ fault. Christmas was some sort of mass hallucination, caused by mortal and supernatural folk alike ingesting the words of Charles Dickens in huge gulps back in the day. Dickens had done for Christmas what J. K. Rowling had done for Quidditch: invented it. Well, Rowling had made up the sport out of whole cloth, while Dickens had an existing traditional holiday to work with. But the result was a similar shift in the cultural zeitgeist, and even vampires weren’t immune to it. Christmas cards and mistletoe, trees and presents, family and loved ones, and lots of partying. Vampires always liked to party.

“You haven’t been partying enough lately,” Rico told his friend. “That’s your problem. ‘Tis is the season to party.” And since when was Jon Coyote ever alone?

“I’ve been playing superhero a lot. Too much.”

“That’s fun, too.”

“Normally, yeah.” Jon Coyote sighed.

He sounded so pitiful Rico half expected him to go howl at the moon. Except it was the middle of an overcast December day, and they were vampires, not werewolves. They had were-jackals among their crew; maybe he should send Jon out partying with that bunch of wild men.

Rico finally registered his kinsman’s remark about having played hero too much. This was not the way a Clan Prime normally felt. The whole point of a Prime’s existence was to protect mortals—and get laid a lot. Come to think of it, he couldn’t recall Jon hanging with many women lately. Any, actually.

“When’s the last time you had sex?” he asked.

This was normally the sort of question more likely to start a Prime fight than to get an answer. It was a measure of how down Jon was that he said, “There was a girl when we were in New Orleans.” Then he sighed.

Rico said incredulously, “That was three months ago!”

“Ninety-two days, to be precise.”

Rico put down his guitar in shock. “Ninety-two days without sex? Are you crazy?”

“I’m in love.”

“Damn. That’s worse.”

“I know.”

“Love love, or bond love?”

It was perfectly possible for a Prime to fall in love many times in his long life. Having richly satisfying affairs with both vampire and mortal women was one of the perks of being a vampire. But bonding—bonding was serious business. It could happen with a vampire female or with a human woman, and it meant the end of casual sex with multiple partners forever. While this was the ideal relationship all Primes were supposed to hope for, an actual bond played hell with the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle. Rico knew: he’d met his bondmate, the lovely Gemma Corax of Clan Corvus, ten years before. Of course, this made him the happiest vampire in the world and all, but…

Jon ran his hands through his heavy blond hair and gave a sad shake of his head. “Bond,” he said softly as the door opened and their bandmates walked in.

“James Bond,” Bartholomew Corbett said.

“I should have kept my mouth shut,” Jon muttered.

Joffrey Reynard jerked a thumb at Jon and asked Rico, “Has he been telling you about his little Desilu?”

“Desiree,” Jon corrected, and gave Jof an angry look. “How do you know about her?”

“She’s all you talked about on the plane when we left New Orleans.”

“Yeah,” Rico recalled. “We could barely get through planning an op, with you going on about the girl from the night before.”

“I don’t remember discussing her.”

Jof shook his head. “You’re pitiful. Did you buy her the diamond bracelet?”

“No.”

Rico asked, “If she’s your bondmate, why haven’t you claimed her?”

“When we first met after Katrina, she was just this kid I looked after. She was way too young, and I never laid a fang on her.”

“But you wanted to,” Jof said.

“In the worst way,” Jon conceded. “But that would have made me as bad as the mortals we hunt. When I found her again the last time we were in New Orleans, I discovered that she’s a fan. She’s not in love with me—she’s got it bad for the Jon Coyote rock star image. It wouldn’t be fair to her—”

“Oh, please!” Corky Cage broke in with his usual sneer. “You’re just using that as an excuse not to settle down. Suck it up, and be a Prime.”

Corky’s real name was Cordwainer, which Rico figured was reason enough to make anybody bad-tempered. He took out a lot of aggression by playing drums, and kicking bad-guy ass with righteous enthusiasm.

While the rest of the band were all Primes of the vampire Clans, Corky was Prime of one of the vampire Families. The Families were more pragmatic in their attitudes toward mortals than the idealistic Clans, but Corky was a convert to the Clan Code, with all the zealotry of a convert. Sir Galahad had nothing on this guy.

“You don’t abandon a bondmate,” Corky reminded Jon.

“She’s not a bondmate,” Jon answered. “Besides, she’s still too young.”

“She’s always going to be younger than you,” Rico pointed out. “Get her teenage image out of your head, and remember the woman you bedded.”

Jon rose angrily to his feet, reacting with typical Prime jealousy. “She’s—” Jon’s cell phone rang before he could finish. He fished it out of a tight jeans pocket. “Hello?” After a few moments of shouting issued from the phone, he asked, “Aunt Martine?”

The other Primes strained to listen, and Jon winced as the shouting continued.

“Desi?” he asked when he could get a word in. “Why? What?” he shouted, and sat down heavily, his eyes wide with shock. At jagged intervals, he managed to shout back, “That’s not possible! Me? Mine? No, you can’t do that! I can’t. You wouldn’t? All right, all right. I’ll be there.”

When he got off the phone and looked at his staring comrades, the terminally insouciant Jonathan Coyote appeared as if he’d been hit in the head with a hammer. Repeatedly.

“I’m—uh—I have to go to New Orleans,” he managed to get out. “I—she—”

“We know,” Rico answered. “We heard.”

“How do you—”

“We’re vampires,” Jof reminded him. “We have superpowers.”

“And Aunt Martine was shouting loud enough to wake the dead,” Rico added. “The whole building probably heard her.”

“You knocked her up!” Corky cackled. He came over and slapped Jon on the back. “Congratulations, man!” Then he narrowed his eyes and added, “You’re going to take care of her, right?”

Jon glared at him for a moment, his bright blue eyes taking on a feral glow. “Right now, we’re going to give a show,” he said, voice crackling with authority—the true alpha Prime of this pack. His gaze swept over them, bringing them to attention. “The best damn show we’ve ever done.”

One by one, they nodded.

“Then I’m going to New Orleans,” Jon finished.

“We’re going to New Orleans,” Rico added after a moment of defiant silence.

Jon glared, but the others nodded confirmation.

“Aunt Martine throws a hell of a Christmas party,” Rico said.

“And we wouldn’t miss this shotgun wedding for the world,” Corky finished.

M artine Shagal, head of House Martine of Clan Shagal, stood on her front porch with her hands on her hips and looked down her fine, arched nose at Jon. “Did you bring a ring?”

Jonathan Coyote, Prime of House Natalya of Clan Shagal, stood at the bottom of the stairs and said, “Where is she?”

Clan women were used to being answered, respected, and obeyed. Theirs was, after all, a matriarchal culture. But Jon wasn’t feeling particularly deferential at the moment. He’d come at Martine’s demand, and that was going to have to be enough for her. Whatever happened next was his business.

He’d lived too much of his life in public, in the glare of the media, under the eyes of his fans. He existed in the fishbowl of stages, hotels, and tour buses. A lot of cameras had been turned on him in the last twenty years. A lot of people thought they had a piece of him. It was the life he’d chosen, enjoyed, and lived to the fullest, but it wasn’t his real life. It wasn’t all his life.

He lived in the darkness, as well. He followed ancient custom. He’d made the vow not all Primes were willing to make in this postmodern age. He hunted out evil, he fought for justice, he took care of mortals, and he’d cleverly managed to keep the secrets of his kind, despite everything else.

He wore the jackal head tattoo of an active Prime of Clan Shagal on the inside of his right wrist. He held his arm up to show Martine the mark now.

It was all he needed to do to remind her that he was not to be treated as a child. She gave a sharp nod and stepped aside. “Welcome to my home, son of my sister. The woman waits for you inside. Under my protection,” she added. It was a warning to obey the rules of hospitality.

It annoyed him that he wasn’t going to be allowed simply to grab Desi and leave. Martine may have acknowledged that he was Prime, but she’d placed limitations on his rights over the mortal woman in her house.

Fair enough, he supposed. The most important thing right now was to see Desiree. The hardest thing he’d ever done was to walk away from her at her apartment, after walking away from her ten years before.

It was almost as hard to walk into his aunt’s Garden District home. There was a party going on, of course. There were a lot of musicians in the family, so the music was live and lively. The sound of it, and laughter, filled every room. There was no Christmas tree, but lights were strung everywhere—around windows, along walls, across mantels, over doorways. Mistletoe hung from every glittering crystal chandelier, as thick as Spanish moss in the bayous. And the Primes and their ladies were putting the mistletoe to good use. The very air in the crowded rooms sizzled with joyful anticipation and impending passion. Every now and then, in the darker corners, he noted a hint of fang grazing willing flesh and the scent of arousal and blood.

He ignored it all, even the hot-eyed come-hither looks and suggestive touches from some truly beautiful vampire women. It was a mortal he wanted, needed.

Jon made his way through the crowd of kissing, cuddling couples to the base of a sweeping staircase at the center of the mansion. He’d known where Desiree was the moment he’d entered the house. He’d been wrestling with the psychic connection between them for months, trying not to think about her, trying not to go to her. And it had done him no good at all to fight his fate. He’d paid for tempting fate with three months of loneliness and anxiety. She was meant to be his, whether she was ready for the bonding or not. Now he was about to find out what she had paid for his leaving her, and he was going to have try to make it up to her.

He ran up the stairs, dodging party guests on the stairway. He was aware of the looks turned on him—curiosity, interest from some of the females, and assessment from other males, since Primes were always ready for challenges over claims to the women. No vampire party would be complete without a few fights over mating rights. While no Matri or Householder would let the challenges get out of hand in her home, it would also be impolite not to show the female guests how much their beauty and allure were appreciated. The delicate balance of etiquette didn’t matter to Jon right now.

He followed his awareness of Desiree down the hallway at the top of the stairs. An ornate banister flanked one side of the hall, tall doorways the other. He moved swiftly, the polished wood beneath his feet making no sound. All he could think of as he reached the door and turned the crystal knob was how vulnerable Desi was, how fragile.

His concern was so deep that he barely had time to dodge the heavy bronze statue that was hurled at his head as he entered the room.

“You bastard!”

Desiree didn’t look pregnant yet, but he could sense the life force within her. It was to this that he responded. Jon held his hands up before him. “Desi, honey, I can explain.”

She threw another statue at him.

The woman had good reflexes and pretty good aim, but he was a vampire and moved like one to avoid being hit. The statue left a hefty dent in the door he’d been standing in front of a moment before.

He grasped her wrists before she could destroy any more of Aunt Martine’s property. Or put any more holes in the old mansion. Or him.

The moment they touched, he felt the child, and the connection between all of them. He closed his eyes, almost overcome by the bliss.

“Let go of me!” Desi shouted.

She obviously didn’t feel it or was too angry to acknowledge it. He felt a sharp pain in his shin as she kicked him.

Fragile? Vulnerable? What had made him think that about this little hellcat? Hadn’t he learned that a decade ago, tracking her through the flood waters of a lawless town? But she was his hellcat. He’d found her again, and he had to protect her.

Jon drew Desiree into an embrace, holding her gently but firmly. “Hush,” he said. “Think of the baby.”

She craned her head up to glare at him. “Think about the—!”

“I know, I know. If it wasn’t for me…” He sighed. Her warmth, the scent of her skin, and the psychic energy that crackled like lightning around her were all very distracting. The solid weight of her in his arms was wonderful. “I missed you. I’ve always missed you. I’m here now.”

“What do you mean, you’ve always missed me? You don’t want to be here. If she hadn’t called you and made you come—”

“She didn’t make me come. I want to be with you. I know it’s been a while, but—ow!”

She’d kicked him again.

She clearly didn’t believe his words. Jon couldn’t understand why.

“You don’t want to be with me. Somehow you made me think it was all a dream, just so you could, you could…have your way with me.”

He could feel how she believed that with all her heart. This belief was her armor against him, and her weapon. “I—” But words weren’t enough, so he kissed her.

At first, her lips were hard and set beneath his, denying his touch, denying emotion. But he held her, cradled her against him, gentle but insistent. Her body slowly melted against his, and fire ignited between them.

Remember me, he whispered into her mind.

“W hat are you doing out here, tempting fate?”

She gasped and whirled around to face the man who’d snuck up on her. He was tall and older than she was, maybe in his twenties. Even in the dark, she could tell that he had blond hair and blue eyes. He looked stern, but there were dimples hiding at the corners of his face. “Do I know you?”

“No,” he said. “Don’t you know it isn’t safe out here?”

“Of course, I know that.” She laughed, not at him but at the awful place where they stood. His words were a joke. She appreciated that he was worried about her. She looked into his eyes and knew she could tell this man anything. “But there’s a poodle that needs rescuing,” she went on. “And nobody else to do it since FEMA wouldn’t let us take pets with us when we left.”

“You’re risking your life for a poodle?”

“Someone has to,” she said over her shoulder, as she turned around and started on her way once more.

“Hey, wait for me!” he called after her.

She smiled to herself as he caught up with her. Being with him made her feel safer than she ever had before. She knew he wouldn’t leave her alone.

 

But that was exactly what he’d done.

Desi hated that she couldn’t help wanting Jon Coyote’s kiss. It wasn’t fair or right that her body betrayed her like this. She didn’t stop being angry at him as he kissed her, but the anger wanted to morph into passion just because his tongue slid over hers and his hard body fitted so perfectly against hers. The way his hand pressed against the small of her back sent a shiver all the way up her spine. Damn, but the man could kiss!

Which didn’t stop her from pulling away from him after a few delicious moments. “That isn’t going to work,” she told him breathlessly.

The triumphant glint in his blue eyes told her he was certain that it would. Her sizzling nerve endings agreed with him, but Desi forced her hands to push against him.

This time he let her go. “I suppose we should talk first,” he agreed reluctantly. “You remember how we met now, don’t you?”

Desi put a hand to her forehead. She’d never forgotten the young man who helped her rescue animals during the flood, but this was the first time she realized who he was. Was that why she was a Coyote fan?

“You make me dizzy,” she told him.

He gave her that famous dimpled smile. “You’re my dizzy Desi, then.”

She suddenly wanted him to kiss her all over again, and she put some distance between herself and the object of temptation. Up close, the man was even more devastatingly handsome than on a stage or in a music video. He looked like a slightly fallen archangel standing there with his wavy dark blond hair, blue, blue eyes, and fantastic body. Then there were those tight jeans—

Her memories told her that they’d only shared sex in a dream, but now she also knew her teenage memories of him were real. Yet she also knew that this was the first time they’d ever been this close—except for that one touch during the concert three months ago. Her mind believed the night they’d spent together was a dream. But her body remembered his touch, how his kisses could make her drunk with lust. Real lust, not just a fan’s fantasy.

He’d made her believe in the dream. Why? How could she forgive him?

She backed up until she came up against the ornately carved mantel where there were still plenty of art objects to throw at him. Not that she’d meant to destroy her hostess’s property; she’d just been so darned mad when Jon walked into the room. And speaking of Martine Shagal…

“Your family is—” she began.

“Not exactly normal,” he finished for her.

“Holding me prisoner,” she finished for herself.

Oh, they’d been polite about it, even kind. Martine had given her a tisane that cleared the morning sickness right up, and Desi was certainly grateful for that. Martine had also tried explaining the peculiarities of the Shagal Clan in an oblique way, always coming back to how Jon would have to fill in the details when he got here. But the fact remained that once Madame Helene had delivered her to this Garden Quarter mansion, it had become Desi’s prison. She resented the confinement almost as much as being pregnant and not knowing how it had happened.

“You’re an honored guest of the Clan,” Jon said. “Very special and important to the family. I know our ways seem peculiar—”

“My grandma’s a voodoo queen,” Desi told him. “My Uncle Ray is now my Aunt Rayelle. My brother lives with a pack of feral Catahoula Leopard dogs, and my sister’s a Wall Street stockbroker. I don’t mind peculiar. I mind incarceration.” She swept a hand around the elegant room. “Even in luxury.”

Jon considered what she’d said for a moment, then asked, “Any vampires in your peculiar family?”

“Not that I know of—but Aunt Tess claims she lived with a werewolf for a while.”

“Do you believe in werewolves? Or vampires?”

She shrugged. “Well…”

J on was glad that Desi was reacting with such spirit to the situation. He’d built up an image of her as sweet and gentle, and passive in the last three months, as well as convincing himself that she was way too young for him. He didn’t know why, considering how brave and resourceful she’d been as a kid.

They’d laughed a lot the one night they’d spent together. He’d been in a talkative mood, and she’d been a good listener. Just being with her soothed his soul. Rico was right that she’d always be younger than him, as any mortal he fell in love with would be. But a mortal bondmate lived as long as her bonded vampire. He recalled that she’d read his palm and been really surprised at the length of his lifeline, and she’d showed him that she had a long lifeline as well. He should have realized what that meant then, but the desire that had been brewing for a decade had gotten in the way. Most of their night together had been spent making love, and she’d been—perfect.

“You told me you’re a vampire,” she answered. “In the dream.” She rubbed her temples, then shot him a furious look. “It was real.”

“Of course, it was real. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you so soon, but—”

“You made me forget!”

“I did not!”

“Do you always hypnotize your groupies? Which I am not,” she added firmly. “I didn’t go to the concert to meet you. I don’t even remember how I met you.”

Jon laughed. “I don’t do groupies. Well—not for years. That got old fast.”

“Then how do you explain…” She patted her belly.

She really didn’t remember? Why didn’t she remember? He’d only made the intensity of their meeting fade—he didn’t want her to forget him. If she truly didn’t remember, he couldn’t blame her for being so pissed at him.

“I meant to come back,” he told her. “I’ve been meaning to since we met—again. Maybe I should have taken you with me—but it would have been too dangerous right after we left New Orleans.”

“You had a show in Memphis,” she told him. “How is a concert in Memphis too dangerous?”

“I don’t just play in a band. I’m a vampire.” He showed her the black jackal’s head tattoo on his right wrist. “This is the Egyptian god Anubis, my Clan’s totem. Our patron Anubis was a guardian, and that’s what I am.”

“I thought you said you’re a vampire.”

“I am.”

“Right.” She patted her abdomen again. “Dead people don’t get women knocked up. Or run around in the daylight. I’ve got the DVD of the concert you did in Barcelona—two hours in the midday sun.”

“An awesome show.” He nodded fondly at the memory of that particular gig. “I take drugs.”

“You’re a musician,” she countered. “Of course you do. I read that you’d been through rehab.”

“I’ve never done those kinds of drugs. I take sort of allergy drugs,” he corrected. “For the vampirism.”

“Vampirism’s an allergy?”

“No!”

“A lifestyle choice, then?”

“No. We’re born, not made. If we want to live in the daylight, we take certain drugs to protect ourselves. We don’t need to take the drugs if we don’t want to. I find it convenient to live in the light, so I take them. We do need to drink blood as part of our nourishment, but we don’t need to kill, or drain our partners like in the movies. Sharing blood with our lovers is emotionally satisfying for both parties. Our sharing blood won’t turn you into a vampire, but it will—”

“Is my baby going to be a vampire?”

“Our baby. I don’t think so.”

“You’re not sure?”

He sighed. “It’s complicated.”

Desi folded her hands in front of her stomach. “I’m a prisoner here. I have plenty of time for explanations.”

“And you deserve them. If we have a girl, she might become a vampire, which is a very good thing, since there are so few females of our kind. But far more males are born than females, and males with human mothers can’t become vampires.”

“Oh.” She held her hands over her belly, and concern, hope, and pleasure ran across her expression as she looked into his eyes.

Jon stepped closer. He hated being on the defensive; that was no way to spend your life with someone. “Let’s get one thing straight,” he said, and moved in front of Desiree faster than she could have blinked. As she gasped at his sudden closeness, he said, “Pay attention.”

Then he let his fangs grow.

D esi watched in complete fascination as Jon changed before her eyes. This couldn’t be some kind of special effect, and it wasn’t anything like the fake fangs worn by the Goth types who favored the vampire tours and clubs of the Quarter. These fangs were the real thing, bright and shiny and sharp. Sexy.

Instead of frightening her, the sight of them pressing against Jon’s full lower lip sent a strong shiver of desire through her. Desire even stronger than the first time she’d seen him live onstage when she was sixteen. Which hadn’t been the first time she’d seen him, even though she’d thought so at the time.

She wasn’t sixteen anymore, and he was far more than her rock god fantasy man. He was other, alien. Still the sexiest thing alive. And he was the father of her child—and she couldn’t remember how it had happened.

“I am a vampire. And I claim you as my bondmate. You belong to me, Desiree.” He spoke as solemnly as if he’d made a vow. Maybe he just had.

“Belong?” Her emotions shot from desire back to fury, and the next thing she knew, she’d raised her hand to slap the very real vampire.

He grabbed her wrist before she could move. Then he brought it to his mouth and kissed it, grazing the sharp edges of his fangs along the tender flesh over her pulse.

“Oh, dear!” Desi gasped, and closed her eyes. Her knees went weak. “This I remember,” she said on a sigh. She adored the man—except for the fact that she also hated him. “You shouldn’t have made me forget,” she told him. “That was wrong. It was evil. Cruel.”

Jon stepped back and threw up his hands. “I didn’t make you forget anything!” Then he looked thoughtful for a moment. “Maybe a little.”

“You made me think the best sex of my life was all a dream.”

His confusion returned. “Why would I do that? I would never make a woman forget she had sex with me, that would be like—”

“Rape,” Desi put in.

J on suddenly had to sit down. He stumbled backward into the nearest chair, trying to come to terms with what Desiree had said. She had every right to be upset, if he’d done what she believed he had.

He struggled to bring up the exact memories of what they’d done that night, ran a hand through his hair, and looked into Desi’s accusing eyes. “I remember telling you I’m a vampire. I shouldn’t have done that, so I made you forget it. That’s not something that we talk about on first dates. Believe me, I wanted to see you again and probably couldn’t have stayed away. But something came up, and—”

“Something?”

He looked up at her and couldn’t help but smile. She fought it but couldn’t stop a faint answering smile. She was small, bright, beautiful, confused, angry, and very, very curious. Her curiosity charmed him. Everything about her charmed him—of course it did; they’d been born to be bondmates. What had ever made him even pretend she could be anything else?

One touch of her hand had been the first clue. One taste of her blood had been addicting. One night of lovemaking had been the best night of his life.

She was also far more psychic than he’d believed her to be on the night they’d met. Hadn’t she told him so ten years ago? Underestimating her abilities led to his mistake after the concert, and their current problem.

“I didn’t mean for you to think the lovemaking was a dream. I would never lie to you. But I did accidentally screw up your memories. Sweetheart, I am so sorry.”

He got up and went to her, putting his fingers gently on her temples. “I did too thorough a job when I got into your head. This is the stuff you were supposed to forget.”

 

“You know about BBD?” he asked as the limo glided along the dark street in a very, very bad part of town.

“Big Black Dog,” she answered. “It’s your charity. You’ve spent years helping runaways, getting homeless kids off the streets. You fund shelters and rehab facilities. I’ve contributed to BBD.”

“Thank you.” He stroked her cheek and kissed her. His touch left tingling heat on her lips and skin. “But we do a bit more than fund BBD. We’re guardians of mortals, following the traditions of our ancestors. Apparently, some Primes of our Clan back in ancient Egypt swore an oath to Anubis—the original Big Black Dog—to serve and protect. I took that same oath when I came of age.”

The limo came to a stop in front of a dark alley between two rundown warehouses. Her awareness was more focused on the way he made her feel than on what he’d said, or where they were. But when he opened the door to get out, a flash of worry went through her. “Where are you going?”

“Hunting.” He smiled, showing long, sharp fangs. “Stay here.” He disappeared into the shadows of the alley.

It was a command, telepathic, hypnotic. It took her only a few moments to break the spell and reach for the door handle. The limo driver tried to stop her, but she eluded him. Following Jon was easy, even though he moved silently in the dark, even with the heavy footsteps of the driver pelting behind her. It was impossible for her not to know where he was.

She dodged through a broken doorway and found him deep inside the huge old building. There were adult male bodies on the floor and teenage girls locked up in cages. And there was blood on Jon’s mouth when he dropped the last body and turned to look at her. His eyes were glowing.

 

“That was what I made you forget,” he said, bringing her out of the memory. “I didn’t mean for you to see me rescuing those girls—not like that, giving in to the blood craving that can make me turn violent. I shouldn’t have taken you with me, but I couldn’t stop myself. I needed to be with you and knew we didn’t have much time. I couldn’t take you with me to Memphis, because what happened here was only the beginning of a series of raids to break up a forced prostitution ring. It was dangerous work and—”

“Shhh.” Desi put her hand over his mouth. “Let me think.” After a few minutes, she said, “So, in order to make me forget that fight in the warehouse, you made me forget everything?”

“I didn’t mean to,” he answered. “But you’re a stronger psychic than I thought.”

The door opened, and Martine Shagal stuck her head in. “You two are missing the party. Come downstairs now.”

“But—” Jon said.

“Come and introduce your lady to your bandmates.” Martine opened the door wider and gestured them forward.

“They’re here?” Jon sighed. Of course they were. Though he’d taken the band’s private jet to race to Desi, there was nothing stopping the rest of Coyote from taking commercial flights. He wanted time and privacy, but he was going to get teasing and well-meaning advice instead.

“Might as well get this over with,” he grumbled. He put his arm around Desi’s waist and guided her toward the door.

T he level of conversation fell as they stepped through the door, but Rico was used to making an entrance. He smiled and walked into the living room to greet friends and family. He was a Prime in his prime, with his arm around his bondmate, and all was right in his world. Their joined psychic aura was strong around them, so he could enjoy the party without worrying about a challenge for his mate from any unattached pup.

He did smile at all the ladies he saw, for it would be rude for even the most strongly bonded vampire not to show appreciation for all that female beauty. Being Prime, he of course kept a jealous eye on Gemma to make sure she didn’t even look at another male. It was a terrible double standard that vampires lived by.

He felt how amused Gemma was by his behavior and swept her under the nearest bough of mistletoe for a long, deep kiss

When they came up for air, a waiter was holding a tray of champagne toward them. They took the slender crystal flutes and retreated to an empty spot at the bottom of a curving staircase. Pine branches attached to the curving banister with twisting red and green ribbons scented the air, blending with the warm cinnamon aroma of red candles set in tall gold candelabras.

Gemma looked up the stairs and tilted her head to one side. She looked adorable, a small blond woman in a short black dress. A fortune in diamonds twinkled on her ears and around her long, slender throat.

“Fireworks going off up there,” she whispered to him after she concentrated with all her senses for a few moments. She waved a hand in front of her face, her cheeks going pink. “The place is warming up.”

Rico registered the electric sensation of sexual tension among the guests as typical background noise for a vampire party. Or a Coyote concert, come to think of it. “Jon must be using all his charm on his human mate.” He gave a one-shoulder shrug. “Jon with a mortal—who’d have thought it?”

Actually, only about a third of the Clan Primes ended up with vampire bondmates. There weren’t as many vampire females as there were males, and even if the population were more equal, the psychic connection that instigated a bond struck where it would. In Jon’s case, with a mortal woman. In his own case, a vampire one.

“After he tried to hook up with Flare Reynard and she treated him so badly, I don’t blame him for finding a nice mortal girl,” Gemma whispered to him.

Rico couldn’t help but smile. “It’s Flare’s loss that she didn’t think Jonathan Coyote was good enough for her. It’s not like she broke his heart or anything. He got a couple of good songs out of the end of the affair.”

Gemma laughed and shook her head. “That’s all you guys care about.”

“We are a band.” He looked around at the rest of the crowd. “And we’re all here.”

Bartholomew had his arms around two pretty girls, who were taking turns letting him sip from their wine glasses—and their throats. Jof was talking very seriously to a Prime Elder, and the Elder was laughing at whatever Jof was telling him. Corky was standing very still in the center of the room, looking up the stairs as the party swirled around him.

What’s he up to? Rico wondered.

“I wonder if the baby will be one of us,” Gemma said.

The question took Rico’s attention away from Corky. “Wouldn’t that be just like Jon?” He laughed. “Pregnant with a daughter on the first date.”

Their kind reproduced slowly, even vampire to vampire. It generally took many years of being fully bonded for a vampire and a mortal to have children.

“Let’s hope,” Gemma answered. “And maybe she didn’t get pregnant on their first date.” When he cocked an eyebrow skeptically at her, she went on. “Maybe their psychic connection’s been going on for years. She’s a big fan of Jon’s, right? She just fell in love long distance through his songs.”

Rico nodded. “You think our music brought them together?”

“Why not?” she answered. “And he was psychically searching for her. I’ve always wondered who the songs like ‘Courtyard Rose’ and ‘Dreaming Desire’ were about. And—”

Just then, Jon and his lady appeared behind Aunt Martine at the top of the stairs. Like everyone else, Rico craned to get a good look at the woman Jonathan Coyote had come to claim. She was small, with short brown curls, a creamy coffee complexion, and huge, dark brown eyes. She didn’t look afraid, as a person facing the scrutiny of a house full of vampires might be expected to be. She did look confused, but Rico was certain that was aimed squarely at Jon. No one else mattered to her.

He liked that about Desiree Gill. A singular concentration on the male you bonded with was a proper quality in a female.

Gemma caught this thought and snorted. “Primes are such pigs.”

He didn’t deny it but drew her closer in his possessive, protective embrace.

D esi wished that Martine Shagal had left her and Jon alone longer; she hated being thrust out into public view when they still had so much to work out.

But suddenly they were in this crowd. How could she think with all this noise and all these people—and that was Rico and the glamorous Gemma smiling up at her from the bottom of the stairs! Smiling at her? They were famous!

Of course, Jon was famous, too. She’d forgotten about that while they’d been arguing. How odd that she’d forgotten to be awed by his fame. She hadn’t even been horrified or frightened knowing that he was a vampire, either. He was just—Jon.

Her Jon? Jonathan Coyote, hers? The Jonathan Coyote?

Why did that not seem preposterous?

“My mom’s going to be jealous,” she murmured. “She was a fan of yours long before I was.”

He laughed. “Go ahead, make me feel my age.”

They reached the bottom of the stairs before she could answer, and suddenly they were the object of attention.

Gemma Shagal took her hands. “I’m Gemma, this is my Rico, and we’re very happy to meet you,” the glamorous woman told her. “You look shell-shocked. Why don’t we get you some ginger ale and a place to sit down?”

“Hey!” Jon called out as Gemma led Desi away.

Desi didn’t take more than three steps before she and Gemma were surrounded by a group of male vampires. They were all taller than she was, and they were all handsome and self-confident. Exuding sexuality seemed to be standard operating procedure among this lot. They also all seemed to be wearing black. They were smiling, some with a bit of fang showing. Desi couldn’t help but get the impression that they were looking at her as if she were a tasty party snack.

Beside her, Gemma let out a low chuckle. “Boys,” she said.

“Hello, Desiree,” one of the crowd said.

Desi focused her attention on the male who’d spoken. He was one of the tallest, with long black hair and green eyes. He had shoulders wide enough to block out the sun and looked vaguely familiar. Oh, great—another lost memory? “Do I know you?”

“You do not,” Jon said firmly.

The one who’d spoken to her elbowed the males beside him out of the way. One of them actually growled, but the crowd stepped back to give him room. “I’ve known you for a long time,” he said. “I’m Cesare. You’ve seen me around the Quarter, when I’ve wanted you to.” He glared over her shoulder at Jon. “I would have claimed her if you hadn’t come along.”

She glanced back to see Jon glaring at Cesare. He put a hand on her shoulder, the connection sending a shiver through her that was psychic as well as physical.

“Mine,” he said.

Cesare gave a nasty laugh. “She’s not completely yours yet. I saw her first.”

“No, you didn’t. And you didn’t have her first,” Jon said.

Gemma sighed and whispered in Desi’s ear, “They’re kind of cute when they’re puppies, but this stuff grows old after a while.”

“What stuff?” Desi whispered back.

“They’re working up to fighting over you,” Gemma told her. “It’s a compliment, really,” she added when Desi turned a horrified look on her.

“The lady’s a guest here, and a stranger to our ways,” another male chimed in. Desi recognized him as Corky Cage, Coyote’s drummer. He smiled, spreading his arms out to get everyone’s attention. “If there’s more than one Prime wanting to claim this lovely mortal woman, she has to be won. Lady Martine, isn’t this a time to let the woman chose her champion and reward the victor?” He looked between Jon and the challenger. “Prove your devotion to her, if you want her.”

“Indeed,” Martine Shagal said, taking control of the situation with just one word. Everyone’s attention focused on their hostess. “Cordwainer is correct. Let’s turn this into a competition rather than the usual brawl. It’ll save wear and tear on my holiday decorations.”

Jon wondered if his aunt had put Cesare, her youngest son, up to this challenge to prove a point. “I love her, Aunt Martine,” he told her, and he turned Desi to face him. He put a finger under her chin to make Desiree look him in the eye. “I love you,” he told her. “I always have. I always will. Know that I’ll always be with you.”

“Love isn’t at stake here,” Corky spoke up. “Honor is.”

“Cordwainer is correct,” Martine said again. “Don’t just proclaim your love, Jon. Do something to impress the girl with your devotion.” She gave an imperious wave that sent everyone but himself, Desiree, and Cesare to the edges of the big room. Jon and Cesare stepped away from Desiree, leaving her alone in the center of the room, a prize for all eyes to see. She crossed her arms and frowned.

Martine smiled at them, but there was sternness in her demeanor. She gestured, candlelight glinting off the emerald ring on her hand. “Primes, choose your weapons.”

Jon grinned. Fine. Let’s do it. He turned all his attention on the woman he was determined to win. “Somebody hand me a guitar.”

Desi was barely aware of the laughter and applause that broke out around them. Jon Coyote was looking into her eyes, and she had no doubt that he wasn’t aware of anyone but her. All the memories they shared flooded through her, and every last bit of resentment and anger faded away even as she fought to keep it alive.

He loved her. He’d said so.

She had to turn her back on him to be able to think. All right, so he’d messed up her head and gotten her knocked up and disappeared from her life for the last three months.

After all that, was she going to let him get away with a simple Sweetheart, I am so sorry?

The first few bars of “Tempting Fate” sounded in the room and in her head. And her heart. And her soul. And her body. And she turned back to face him. He smiled tenderly, and every note he played was filled with love. When he began to sing, the words were all for her.

His rival never had a chance.

Was she going to let him get away with everything he wanted?

Desi smiled tenderly. Of course she was.

He was Jon Coyote, and she’d loved him all her life.